BETA PHOTO: The west face of Sports Challenge Rock as seen fro...
Description
This route lies just left of the route Ranger J.B. - refer to that route for a description of the area and location.
On the right-hand end (south) of the west face of Sports Challenge Rock, there are two moderate cracks. Climb the left-most of these two and up to the shoulder of the rock, perhaps 40 feet up. Place a directional and continue to the summit of the rock to belay. Retreat by a rappel from the summit anchors. The climb is mismarked in the Vogel guides prior to 2006 as #1009 on the picture-topo.
This climb, Ranger J.D., is protected somewhat more easily than its neighbor, Ranger J.B. The rating of both climbs, at 5.6 and 5.8, respectively is justified more by the awkwardness of the moves of each climb rather than an inherant physical difficulty. These are good first leads for folks who can climb harder and are just starting to place gear, but not for climbers who will be testing their limits of skill.
I thought this was a fun lead. Very vertical, and a nice challenge for a mid-fifth leader. The fun part was figuring out the correct sequence of moves. After each "cruxy" part there is a nice stance to rest, place some pro and plan the next couple of moves. Not a worthless route at all IMHO
Sports Challenge Rock
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